Random Thoughts V
by Ophium
Summary: A series of short stories, from the POV of various characters on the course of several moments of different episodes. The fifth one is from Sucre's POV, during episode 1.15 By the Skin and the Teeth. Bad language present.


_A series of drabbles, from the POV of various characters on the course of several moments._

_From the initial five Random Thoughts that I had in mind, this is the last one. I have a couple of more characters that I would try a shot at, but reviews, suggestions and general criticism are more than welcome._

Random Thoughts: Sucre

The prisneyland

_(Set during By the Skin and the Teeth)_

Not exactly prisneyland, but it wasn't like I had much to complain about my stay in prison.

The streets, which had been my school for as long as I can wipe my own nose, taught me a lot that I could use inside Joliet. Taught me not only to survive, but how to actually live inside these walls.

So, life behind bars, not that much of a stretch for me. Same rules, different neighbourhood.

You keep to yourself, you don't let anyone bitch you around and you chose your companies well.

I've always been an easy going kind of guy, and people usually like me for that. And I don't make much waves, which for the bulls, it's the surest way I have of them ignoring me. I've even made friends with a couple of them.

I tell you, had Mari Cruz been a part of the deal, and I wouldn't mind doing time at all.

Be she wasn't. So I do mind.

She's outside, alone, pregnant with my child, with that _coño_ of a cousin of mine hitting on her. You get family like that, and you don't need no enemies, know what I'm saying?

I feel like punching the wall, imagining it's his face. I ran my hand through my shaved head instead. It must be covered in grey by now. My shaved head, if I ever allow hair to grow back on it, I tell you, it will be as grey and wrinkled as that of a _viejo_. And every single one of them curly whites will have only one name to blame for. Michael.

I was never a cool guy, you know, not the cool cool kind, but that cool chill cool kind, the kind of guy that can calmly wait in the car while his _compadres_ rob a bank. My nerves were never that good for those kinds of things, and my stomach gets crazy when I'm nervous.

For the record, waiting for your cellmate to come back through the hole that is dug up behind your toilet, is the worst kind of pain that my stomach's has ever known.

When I first saw the new fish I gave him about a week to either be dead or seriously maimed. I sort of won that bet, because the guy did lose two toes before the week was over, but that was the only assumption I made about him that turned out right. Toes aside, the fish never stopped to surprise me ever since.

I mean, you look at the guy and he's like a walking contradiction, one of those _páradoch_ things, the ones that don't make no sense.

He looks as tough as nails and even has a full shirt of tattoos on his upper deck to prove just that, but he says things like 'excuse me' and 'thank you' when he's distracted; he had the balls to go up against Abruzzi and his whole gang, but at night, I can hear him in his cot, turning left and right, losing the battle against the monsters in his sleep; he's a smart guy, as smart as I ever met any, but he can't seem to understand the hours in his fucking watch and realize that it's almost time for count!

Where the hell is he?

I stuffed his bed with pillows, trying to make it look like he is sleeping in his bed. I feel like I'm six years old again, sneaking away from my mother in the middle of the night, leaving my pillows beneath the sheets, in case she comes to check. It never worked with _mi madre_. It ain't gonna work with the bulls either.

Truth be told, the fish did warn me that this alternative plan was suicide. What I didn't figured at the time was that I would be hanging myself alongside with him, because that's exactly what is going to happen when the badge comes and finds that my cell mate is the invisible man.

I had been feeling kind of sorry for the fish these last days, on account of everything that's been happening with his brother and all. After all, _familia es familia_.

He had always been on the quiet side, something that didn't surprise me much because white people tend to be too uptight, you know? Not enough _merengue_ and _salsa_ in their blood, if you catch my drift.

The smart ones tend to be even worse, and if I sure about something is that Michael is one smart fish.

So, having a closed lipped white cellmate wasn't that much of a stretch for me. But he did talk, and with time I discovered that the man even had a sense of humour. A dark, sarcastic one, but it was still there.

Just not lately. Lately _papi_ has been positively glum.

I catch him staring off into nothing, lost inside that complicated mind of his. That or looking at the mirror. He looks a lot at the mirror, hours and hours studying that tattoo of his like it's the longest sheet of comic book that you've ever seen. Sometimes I think he even forgets that the thing is on his body, cursing when he can't twist no more and loses sight of a particular part of the drawing.

I think he's losing it. I might get white hairs on my shaved head, but the stress is getting to him too. He didn't sleep the night before his brother's execution, but no one can really blame him for that. I know that if that was my brother seating on that chair, I wouldn't be sleeping either.

And when the execution was delayed he did sleep, but I could feel him jumping in his bed all night long, waking up gasping, like the air in our cell had just run out. Scared the shit out of me, thinking that it was some earth quake or something.

He stopped shaving, which isn't saying much, except if you know the guy a little bit better than most, like I do. He has always been careful about his looks, not in a sissy kind of way, but in a clean kind of way, you know? Organized, every facial hair in its place, every inch of skin carefully clean. He's been kind of smelly too, almost as if the time that he spends inside his head, figuring a way out, doesn't leave him room to mind anything else, not even himself.

Problem is that's kind of dangerous when you're inside.

You spend your whole day inside your own mind, not paying attention to the world around you because you're in the mood to not give a damn about it, but the world ain't gonna stop turning because of it.

I kind of appointed myself his guardian during these last days, paying attention to where he was, who was talking to him, what was being said. Because Michael might've not been in the mood to take notice of the world, but the world sure was taking notice of him, especially those who were supposed to be outside by now and were counting on him to get them out.

That _pindejo_ T-Bag tried to have a go at _papi_, and _papi_ would've let him if I wasn't there, so see what I mean?

That bull is getting close now, and unlike that last time, when Michael pulled that miraculous arrival out of his ass, I don't think we'll be as lucky this time around.

I flip around in my cot, trying as hard as hell to look like I don't have a care in the world, hand dangling in the air and eyes closed. I pondered for a second if I should add a little snore there for effect and then think better of it.

Time ticks by slowly as a snail and I can feel that treacherous drop of sweat, making its way down my face, like it's on a damn stroll. The cells ain't that hot this night and if the bull catches me sweating for nothing, he'll know something's wrong. No time to clean it up now, just focus on looking asleep.

I can hear my own heart, beating wildly inside my ears and I know that can't be good for my blood pressure. I tell you, the minute that fish gets his skinny ass back in to this cell, I'm gonna kill him, slowly, like he's killing me!

The bull stops outside my cell and I pray, counting the seconds until I hear either his boots moving away or the words out of his mouth that will ultimately add ten years to my sentence.

It's the heavy sound of booted feet dragging on concrete, mixed with the rhythmic jingling of metallic keys that I finally hear, after what felt like an eternity.

I thank all the saints and all the angels in the altar that look after my Puerto Riqueño ass, because, don't ask me why, the bull bought my pillows-under-the-sheet act and walked right on by without saying anything.

I'm still thanking the good Lord when I hear the soft metallic tap coming from behind the toilet. The arranged signal.

Now he decides to come back!

_Coño_.

Or maybe not. I take one look at him and my stomach does another flip-flop. _Papi _don't look so good.

"What happened?" I ask him, but I really don't need an answer. The minute he walked in, water running from his face like he'd been in the rain, I could smell it. It was a mixture of crispy pig and blood. I felt my dinner coming back up.

"I'm burned," he tells me any way.

I've learned a lot of new things from _papi_, things like Hooker's having a law that can bring down a wall using nothing but an eggbeater; things like sniffing your toothpaste before using it so that you wont get a nasty surprise; words too, like _tensile stress_ or _properly propagation_, words that I still don't have a clue about what they mean, but like the way they sound.

Words like passion, which I couldn't spell and had never truly understood its meaning.

Not until you see a man cover his body in ink and throw himself in jail to save his brother's life, do you really know what passion means and what it can lead you to do for the ones you love.

I now know that passion is a word that I can be proud to use about me and Mari Cruz, with no risk of sounding sissy, because he has taught me that it takes a huge pair of _cojones_ to be passionate about someone.

I also learn a new rendition of the expression 'are you fucking crazy?!' when he asks me to help him take off the guard's uniform. I mean, the thing is glued to his skin in the yuckiest of ways, and he wants me to peal it off, just like he was some freaking _naranja_!

_Ai, Cristo..._

He's nuts, but he's also right. It's the end for both us and his brother if he's caught wearing a bull's uniform, and either way, he's already trying to take the thing off by himself. He's shaking so hard that he can barely take the left sleeve and the damage is on the right side. Stubborn son a...

A nice nurse up in the infirmary once told me that it hurts less if you just yank the bandage out in just one go. I figured that if that was true for glued in bandages, it must also apply to uniforms melted in to the skin.

I was wrong.

Half of the cons on this floor wake up with his scream, heads popping up, curious to see who's got it this time. I can tell, from the way the sound was ripped from deep inside his throat that Michael tried not to scream.

I whish he hadn't, because now everyone's looking at us and I suddenly realize that I'm standing behind him, and that he's on all fours in front of me, slumped forward, trying to control the pain. I feel myself turning red and quickly kneel beside him, not wanting to explain compromising positions anymore than I want to explain hanging sheets.

The light above the tiers comes on and I know it will be seconds before the bulls come searching for the source of all the fuzz.

The light comes on inside my head as well and I remember that I have to hide the uniform before they reach us. I quickly stuff it beneath Michael's sheets, aware that it's probably not the best place but this is a prison cell, so I have little options.

_Papi_ is taking deeps breaths now, but I can tell it's not working. I don't know what's on his mind right now, but if he's trying to avoid going in to the infirmary with this, he's got it all wrong. He' shaking worse than before and blood is now flowing freely from the burn, painting the angel on his back in dark red shades.

I stick my arm between the cell's bars and yell for the badge, fighting the panic in my voice. I know that they will try to blame this one on me, and I know that the fish will have to come up with one hell of an excuse to explain how he got burned inside his own cell.

But I also know that he is about to pass out cold on the floor and that he needs the doc to take care of him now.

So, you see, it isn't exactly prisneyland, but as far as wild rides go, there's no other place on earth that will get your heart pumping through your ears as fast and as hard as in here. I'm just not sure if my stomach will survive this much _fun_.

The end


End file.
